Plywood sheets are typically 8′ long. My boat is 10′ long. How do we make the plywood longer?

There are various ways to “scarf” wood together. I found a website with a great description of an easy to make scarf jig that helps make a very shallow angle cut in the plywood for joining sheets together.

I was afraid my circular saw blade wasn’t big enough for the job, so I called around. Marty, from the yacht club, had a 8 1/4″ worm drive Skil Saw. I decided to try that.

I built the jig according to the instructions on the web site an set up to make a practice cut on a piece of scrap plywood. The worm drive was heavy, and had a very narrow fence. While this can be handy in some situations, it was difficult to keep the saw flat against the jig. Also, I bought a finish blade for the saw, hoping it would make a nicer, cleaner cut.

The finish blade had too many teeth, and it just generated heat. Smoke poured out, the saw twisted in the cut, and I almost caught my tarp on fire.

Now what?

I decided to try my little saw. I had to adjust the jig a little, but my fence is bigger, and my saw is lighter. It has a cross cut blade with fewer teeth.